Senior executives top the 2025 Sunshine Lists for the two English school districts that serve the Prescott and Russell region.
The provincial government made the annual Ontario Sunshine List for 2025 available to the public at the end of March this year.
The Sunshine List began in 1996 with approval of the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act (PSSD) by the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government. The goal of the PSSD was to provide “public disclosure of the salary and benefits paid in respect of employment in the public sector to employees who are paid a salary of $100,000 or more in a year.”
The annual list covers all public sector workers for municipalities, county governments, school districts, hospital and other health facilities, regional health units, and other agencies and organizations that receive public funding from the province. The PSSD requires that all of these groups “disclose annually the names, positions, salaries, and total taxable beneifts of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.”
The online version of the list at ontariosunshinelist.com was created in 2013. Alberta and Nova Scotia have their versions of Sunshine Lists.
Criticisms of the Sunshine List are that it is not indexed to inflation and does not include information about cost-of-living raises to salaries required in employee contracts, does not provide details of how long a person has held their position or worked for the municipality, school district, or other agency that is covered by the PSSD, does not provide information about promotions or other changes in a person’s employment history that contributed to increases in their annual salary, amount of time involved in work for their occupation or any background on formal and supplemental training they received to qualify for their position and salary. Critics also note that Sunshine lists get longer each year as more public sector reach the $100,000 benchmark for inclusion on the list because of promotions, mandated salary raises, and other factors.
The 2025 Sunshine List has a combined total of 2,203 entries for the Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario (CDSBEO). These are the two English school districts that have schools in Prescott and Russell’s eight communities. The UCDSB has the most Sunshine List entries at 1,434, compared to 769 for the CDSBEO.
Following are the top ten listings for the 2025 Ontario Sunshine list for the two English school districts operating in Prescott and Russell.
CDSBEO
Julia Graydon, Superintendent of Education, $199,230.66 salary.
Tracy O’Brien, Superintendent of Education, $192,115.27 salary.
Ashley Hutchinson, Superintendent of Business, $188,557.57 salary.
Laurie Corrigan, Director of Education, $185,538.60 salary.
Brent Bovaird, Superintendent of Education, $184,999.88 salary.
Dawn Finnegan, Superintendent of Education, $184,999.88 salary.
Heather Gerber, Superintendent of Education, $184,999.88 salary.
Ralph Sharples, Principal, $177,684.71 salary.
Krista Kiffner, CSDBEO Head Psychologist, $176,272.57 salary.
Andrew Donihee, Teacher, $175,678.71 salary.
UCDSB
Ron Ferguson, Director of Education, $309,084.60 salary.
Jeremy Hobbs, Chief Business Officer, $265,784.57 salary.
Eric Hardie, Executive Superintendent, $239,399.99 salary
Shelley Riddell, Executive Superintendent, $206,730.94 salary.
Heather Van De Glind, Elementary School Principal, $196,055.35 salary.
Kellie Weird, Superintendent, $194,009.14 salary
Marsha Mcnair, Superintendent, $192,554 salary.
Lori Mcdonald, Secondary School Special Education Teacher, $190,217.43 salary.
Monique Favreau, Secondary School Vice-Principal, $189,013.54 salary.
Kurt Fernetich, Secondary School Student Success Teacher, $185,140.66 salary.
